A made mouth

There is an expression in English that, I'm sorry to say, has no equivalent in Swedish. The expression I'm thinking of is ”a made mouth”. This expression means a horse that with a light touch follows the bit and the rider's hands, wherever the rider places the bit.

Simplifying slightly, a horse can react in three ways when the rider takes touch on the reins:
1)in a schooled way and also use her head and neck to balance her body in a correct way
2)negatively to the bit and move her head in a way that puts herself out of balance (using her weight in a negative way)
3)she can fight the bit and the rider's touch (using her muscles in a negative way)

The first of course describes a horse with ”a made mouth”. As I said, this is the reaction of a schooled horse, which means the horse has to be trained to have ”a made mouth”. Of course all horses can be trained to have a made mouth, you don't need a special breed or an expensive horse.

The horse that uses her weight in a negative way, as in the second case, will either lean on the bit and/or move at a higher speed than requested by the rider, and also be difficult to stop. To counteract this the rider can use the classical half halt. This half halt is done with only the hand, the rider's legs are not involved. The aim of the half halt is to help the horse in using her neck to regain her proper balance, which in this case means the horse has to raise her neck.

The horse that uses her muscles in a negative way, the third case, will for instance pull on the reins by locking her jaw, or even try to pull her rider out of the saddle. To solve this problem the rider needs first of all to stop pulling on the reins. All backwards movements by the rider's hand will have the horse defending itself by locking the jaw and/or pulling the other way. Secondly the horse has to release the jaw by lightly chewing on the bit and swallowing. The goal is to have the horse release the jaw as soon the rider takes touch on the reins.

As Maria wrote last week, touchmeans that neither horse nor rider lean or pull on each other.

A horse with a made mouth is a horse that with a light touch follows the bit and the rider's hands, wherever the rider places the bit. A horse trained in this way is a horse that is a true pleasure to ride.